At 6 feet 5 inches tall, Marcus Luttrell has more than half a foot on Mark Wahlberg, the man who plays him in “Lone Survivor,” the big-screen version of his first-person memoir about four Navy SEALs who were part of a covert mission to target a high-level Taliban leader.

In 2005, Luttrell and the three other Navy SEALs were dropped into the Hindu Kush mountains in northeastern Afghanistan as part of Operation Red Wings. It was meant to be a reconnaissance mission, but as the team waited in position in the mountains above a remote village controlled by the Taliban, a trio of goatherders stumbled upon them.

Rules of engagement dictated that they set civilians free, and after a discussion the SEALs, under Lt. Michael “Murph” Murphy (played by Taylor Kitsch), did so. Then they headed for higher ground knowing their position would be quickly revealed. Making matters worse was the fact the men were unable to communicate with headquarters, and the Taliban force was far greater than initially reported.

What ensued was a ferocious battle, a doomed rescue attempt and the deaths of 19 members of the U.S. military. It also shows the selflessness of some Afghan villagers who, like the Navy SEALs, had their own code of conduct.

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Writer-director Peter Berg says while there needed to be some dramatic license in making “Lone Survivor,” his biggest obligation was to tell the story as accurately as possible. “I knew one day we would have a screening of this film and many of those family members would be in the audience and the lights would come up and then I would see those parents’ eyes and know whether or not we got that right,” Berg says.

The 38-year-old Luttrell — a Texas native who uses “sir” or “ma’am” when answering questions — feels the filmmakers “did a great job” in portraying the mission but cautions, “You have to realize that in real life, that gun battle lasted over five hours.” The former Navy SEAL also notes there are still parts of the operation that are classified; so there are some gaps in the story, both in the movie and his book.

Berg spent years trying to make “Lone Survivor.” The book, written by Luttrell with Patrick Robinson, was published in 2007 and quickly became a best-seller. After convincing Luttrell he was the man to make the film, Berg met with many of the relatives of the slain SEALs in order to assure them of his intentions to tell the true story. Ben Foster plays Matthew “Axe” Axelson and Emile Hirsch is Danny Dietz, the other two members of the four-man team.

In 2010, with Luttrell’s help, Berg was embedded in a SEAL platoon in Iraq near the Syrian border to gain more insight into their culture. “It took a long time to make this film because I needed a good understanding of what their world was before I was confident enough to go on the set,” says Berg, whose work includes “Friday Night Lights,” “Hancock” and “The Kingdom.”

Research was also important to Kitsch for his role as Murphy, who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. “I feel real fortunate to have had access to Marcus Luttrell, who was Murphy’s best friend, and I had access to Dan Murphy, his father,” says the 32-year-old actor, who first worked with Berg on the television version of “Friday Night Lights.”

Though Kitsch trained on his own for three months before filming, the actors were also given military training for about a month by an elite team of SEALs and former SEALs, including associates of Luttrell.

How do you turn actors into a cohesive unit like a Navy SEAL team? “Basically, we beat the snot out of them, and we worked them from sunup to sundown like a SEAL team,” says Luttrell. “We created a brotherhood. That stuff is forged in chaos; a brotherhood through blood and pain and sweat.”

Kitsch has nothing but praise for the advisers on the film. “A lot of men fought side by side with Marcus and they are incredibly gracious, fine guys,” says Kitsch. The training included learning to shoot with live rounds, reload and fight on the run.

Even when filming began in October 2012 in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in northern New Mexico, the advisers wouldn’t hesitate to step in if they thought something was off.

“They were incredibly hands-on,” says Kitsch. “Their attention to detail is amazing. The little things can be life and death, not only to you but to your brother fighting beside you.”

Even shooting at 11,000 to 12,000 feet, the crew tried to make everything as authentic as possible. “Everybody’s only motive was to make this true and real and do it justice,” says Kitsch. “No one brought their ego up the mountain.”

At one point in the mission, the SEAL team threw themselves down cliffs to try to get to a safer place. In the film, the scene was performed by stunt actors, resulting in some broken bones.

“Those were real human beings literally throwing themselves off of cliffs,” says Berg, adding they didn’t use wires or dummies. “My job, literally, was to calm people down because everybody wanted to get it right.” Berg notes that he had to stop Kitsch and Foster from trying to do their own stunts.

Berg says when he read the description in the book, he was reminded of the desperation on 9/11 when people were jumping out of the World Trade Center towers. That terrorist attack was why Luttrell was sent to Afghanistan. Even after his miraculous escape, he amazingly recovered well enough to join another SEAL team and deploy to Iraq, where he was involved in intense fighting in the city of Ramadi. He wrote a book about that tour called “Service: A Navy SEAL at War.”

Luttrell calls his survival the result of “pure luck and God’s intervention and stuff like that,” adding that he “wasn’t anything special. I wasn’t the best frogman out there.”

A blast obscured his position allowing him to get away from the Taliban. Severely injured, he crawled for miles and was discovered by friendly Afghans who took him to their village where they protected him under the ancient Pashtun code requiring them to defend a guest to the death.

Eventually, Luttrell — who set up a trust so proceeds from “Lone Survivor” could help the families of his dead “brothers” and go to military charities — had to leave the military. He’s gone through some 20 operations and has a titanium cage around his spine. “In real life, we all died,” he says. “Basically, I’m only here because of modern medicine. It’s all titanium.”

To get word out about the film, there have been numerous screenings for military groups, veterans and NFL teams. Berg says even stars like Denver Broncos’ quarterback Peyton Manning stood in line to talk to Luttrell.

The former SEAL says he never thought about who would play him in the movie. Friends would suggest Brad Pitt and Matt Damon but his biggest concern was that the four be portrayed equally as the team that they were. When Wahlberg came onboard it was not only for a part in the movie, but as a producer, where he has made his mark with “The Fighter,” “Boardwalk Empire” and “Entourage.”

At a screening of “Lone Survivor” last month at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art attended by Luttrell, Wahlberg and Berg, the director joked about the size difference between the actor and his real-life counterpart as they sat side by side. “This man’s a giant of a man with an even bigger heart,” Wahlberg said about Luttrell.

Kitsch says a real camaraderie developed during the filming between the actors and the military trainers. Now some eight years since the mission, Kitsch marvels at how well Luttrell, whom he calls a private guy, has held up. “I think he’s doing remarkably. He’s so eloquent about it. He’s so patient. I honestly don’t know how he does it. It’s so hard to comprehend what he’s been through and continually goes through. I admire the guy. He’s a really amazing person.”

Luttrell says most of his closest friends and family won’t watch the movie because it’s too painful. “As far as myself is concerned, it plays in my head every day because I went through it.” While “Lone Survivor” gets as “close as you could get” in showing what really happened, in the end, he says, “It’s a movie. It’s entertainment. But in real life it’s war, and war is not entertainment.”